Ticketless

 

Mad Man in the Street

 

Some thought he said, ‘hut!’ to shoo off pesky children who giggled endlessly as they passed him on their walks to school. Some thought he said, ‘phut!’ to reproach any passerby, who, in an act of spontaneous generosity, handed him anything less than a rupee. And most of the time, when he seemed to confer with the air around him, the only word they could catch from him was ‘dhut’, as if he were dismissing an inane idea. But no one could say for certain what the mad man in the street – for that is what they called him – actually said, as his utterances seemed to sound all the same.

He lived between a lamppost and large bin, on a jute mat nailed to the pavement by the weight of a dented aluminum canister that clanked every time a coin was dropped in it; a plastic tumbler, pair of worn out hawai chappals, bedroll of discarded clothes, broken umbrella and a few roadside rocks. No one knew where he came from and when and how he got there. One day they saw him on the pavement, resting against the light pole; they saw him the next day and then all the other days.

The man’s gray hair that would have once been sleek were matted in clumps at the back of his head; their heavy tips touched his shoulders and thick fringes sprouted haphazardly in the front hiding his forehead. His dense moustache and beard further hid his face. The hirsute splendor homed colonies of lice which occasionally drove the man to wild fits of scratching. His yellow nails were packed with dirt and his palms and soles hardened by calluses and accretions of grime. His skeletal frame still held some vitality, but time and privation had rapidly sapped dry his fading youth – sinking the eyes, claiming two teeth and crumpling the skin – tossing him straightaway at the age of 68 years to a ripe old age in appearance.

The panwallah outside a fine-dining restaurant would assemble a Culcutta katha for him on days when the business was brisk. Women who went to fetch their children from school in the afternoon trepidly placed leftovers from their kitchens for him.

The first time the mad man in the street actually looked squarely at a person in a long time was in the afternoon of May 1988. With a twig in one hand, he was fighting off a stray, its gnarly teeth ready to grab the dry chapati that he had found after much foraging in the vast bin. That’s when he felt a shadow creeping over him and a voice that said, ‘Excuse me?’

The man thought he recognised those words. He looked up. The sun’s glare hit his eyes and for a moment blinded his vision, before he could finally discern a young woman casting a lean shadow on him. In a flash, the stray plucked the chapati from his fist and scurried off with the loot.

The woman saw the tramp’s eyes flood with white rage. She hurriedly pulled out a steel tiffin box from her handbag, took a vegetable roll from it and held it before the man.

‘Take this. Eat this,’ she said.

The man grabbed it, his anger dissipating as quickly as it had soared.

She then picked out another roll and offered that too. That caused the man’s eyes to twinkle. ‘Excuse me,’ he muttered as he took the second serve and took the woman wholly by surprise.

He watched as she turned, put the box back in her bag, crossed the road and vanished beyond the iron gate of Mehboob Studios.

Bina Das was 25 years old when she had found work at the film magazine Limelight two years ago in 1986. The studio was her beat, where she was now going to interview an actor on a film set. It was the lunch hour and she knew a good spread awaited her; she was only glad to have found a suitable candidate for her tiffin.

Will I ever tell a big story? Bina wondered as the actor, nephew of a film producer, hummed on about an artist’s struggle.

Limelight’s revenues had dropped and the editor had alerted the staff that the magazine needed a ‘blockbuster’ story to resurrect its readership and save it from folding. This doomsday projection terrified Bina. Were it to take the shape of reality, it would sound the death knell on her hard-fought independence in Bombay, forcing her back home to Calcutta and to her family’s depressing entreaties to get married. She would need to find another job that would allow her to retain her room at the working women’s hostel or a story that would bring the magazine back from the clutches of an inevitable death.

‘Have we something to nail the cover?’ asked editor Dinshaw Bhot as Bina stepped into the office on NM Joshi Marg.

‘Din, didn’t you freeze the cover idea at the edit meet only yesterday?’ Bina said, knowing well her defence was weak.

‘For want of a better lead, yes. But you know as well as I, it’s more lackluster than limelight. Go look; look for something. And look harder. Tell the others too,’ said Dinshaw.

Bina sighed and looked at her wrist watch. It was tea time. The canteen worker ambled in with a steel keg, small glass tumblers and a tray of biscuits. He placed them on a common table near the row of newspaper reading stands, where the day’s papers lay spread out wide. Bina filled a glass with tea and took two Parle-Gs. She dipped one end of a biscuit into her tea and was started strolling along the row of newspapers, when she suddenly stopped at a headline: City doc turns savior for homeless.

At the last word, the biscuit drowned into the tea. Bina read on.    

Kailash Lalwani, the story said, was a psychiatrist who had founded a shelter to treat homeless and abandoned mentally ill people.

She got the doctor’s number from the story’s reporter.

 

***

 

‘Hello. Bina ─ from Limelight did you say? I love reading all the filmy stuff. Limelight is calling me ─ is someone offering me a role or what? Hahaha! Just kidding ok Bina. Bolo!’

Bina had least expected to encounter this level of exuberance from a mentalist whose heart bled for those on the streets.

‘You are a hero in life, doctor. Actually, I read about you in the paper. That you help homeless people,’ she said.

‘Yes, yes. We do. Me and my wife Nita. We have three patients with us under treatment. And, you know what, we recently united one with her family. What a happy moment it was. We even took pictures. If you come down someday, I will show you,’ Lalwani said.

‘That’s really nice.’ Bina had to quickly get a word in edgewise. ‘Actually, there is a man I saw on the streets. I don’t know if he is mad or not …’

‘Now that’s a word we don’t use dear Bina. People are only mentally ill,’ Lalwani said.

‘Right, so sorry. Well, he could be mentally ill,’ she said.

‘Where is he?’ asked Lalwani.

‘Outside Mehboob Studios. He stays on the pavement facing the studios. The other day when I gave him some food, he said, “Excuse me.” He was just repeating after me, but the way he said it ─ it was flawless. Like he knew English,’ she said.

‘That’s interesting. Perhaps his family abandoned him. That’s very kind of you to reach us. We shall see what we can do.’

For the next two days, Bina paid no thought to the man. On the third, Lalwani called and told her the man had been admitted to the shelter. It had taken him and his staff a long painful hour to convince him that he was going to a better place where there would be a bed and regular food. It seemed not to appeal to him. Exasperated, one of the doctors’ attendants had said, ‘What do you do here all day, anyway? Direct the traffic? At our home, you can watch TV.’

‘And that did it,’ said Lalwani. ‘The man stood up and walked right up to the stationed ambulance. He is doing far better already. In fact, he is of sound mind; not ill at all ─ trauma of poverty, I suppose. We are still keeping him under observation. That’s all I will say. And does he love the TV! Glued to it,’ Lalwani said.

Days later, the doctor rang again. This time his voice had none of its characteristic tinkle. In fact, it was urgent, even foreboding, thought Bina.    

‘How soon can you come to my office?’ he asked.

‘An hour and half; maybe by 2.30 pm. What’s happened? I am tied up a bit,’ Bina said, wondering what had caused this unexpected demand. The magazine was to go to print the next day and she was busy with proofs.

‘I think you might want to come. I hardly know how to say this. You better come,’ he said.

Bina collected the typewritten pages to proof them on the train. Within an hour she was in Lalwani’s office.

‘He wants to meet you. In fact, he has been insisting on it. He was watching a film on TV last evening and suddenly started saying, ‘Cut! ‘Cut!’ to everyone’s surprise. Then as if he seemed to remember something, he asked us how he got here. When we told it was through you, he said he remembered you outside the Mehboob Studio. We were aghast when he said he knew Limelight. Can you believe it! He wanted to go to the magazine office right away. We tried to talk him out of it. This morning he asked for a barber ─ And this you are not going to believe.’ Lalwani could barely breathe.

The man stepped into Lalwani’s consulting room. He was a far cry from the vision of madness Bina had seen. A flash of recognition overcame her and she stood up at once. The matted mane had been groomed into a soft, shampooed, coiffed mop. His trimmed beard and mustache revealed the celebrated mole on the left chin. That mole had been the toast of the town from a time buried in memory.

‘Prakash Kumar?’ Bina subvocalized the name.

‘Yes ma’am. I am Prakash Kumar ─ the actor!’ the man said, extending his hand towards Bina.

Lalwani looked tense. ‘The barbar recognized him too. I don’t know how many people he is going to tell,’ he said. When no one spoke, he added, ‘It was a Prakash Kumar film on TV yesterday.’

‘You went missing,’ Bina said looking at Prakash.

‘Cheated out of my bungalow by a builder. I don’t know what got over me. I gave it all up and went in search of something I don’t remember ─ All those places I landed up in ─ So far away. They took me away from myself…Will you interview me?’ he asked simply.

Prakash Kumar, superstar of the 50s and 60s, had seen his glory fester into shame rather rapidly when two of his big-ticket movies crashed at the box office and a series of ill-thought investments sank him into debt. He sold off some properties to pay off the creditors. He had no children and his wife had divorced him much before the troubles began. With no movies to his name, he started to fade from public memory.

A powerful builder with an eye on his sea-facing bungalow had started harassing him with offers to turn the property into a high-rise building. The land shark brought the property under dispute by contesting the land usage in connivance with some municipal functionaries. A long court battle bankrupted Prakash Kumar and one fine day he vanished without a trace.

He flitted from ashram to ashram in holy towns, which welcomed him when his name and face were still recognisable. But as the years rolled on, his features and form altered, he slipped away into oblivion, invisible to the world and to himself.

He hopped on to trains, crossed lines of memory and reality, and reached places whose names he knew not. One such journey brought him to the Victoria Terminus station. Memory played a card and he knew he was somewhere near home. He went looking for it. He remembered the spume of high tides; a cream edifice covered in hanging creepers and a large balcony with a tiled parapet and sandalwood swing. For two years he pitched tents on curbs across the city, followed buses, memorized names of routes, speculated the possible destinations of streets and gazed at buildings: the latest spot was the pavement facing the film studio.      

‘Of course, I want to interview you. Right now.’ Bina threw an inquiring and appealing glance at Lalwani.

‘Not in here; no,’ Lalwani said, adding, ‘This is a professional space. We might need to tell the police.’

‘Later please!’ Bina and Prakash almost shouted. Bina because she could not wait to be the first to tell Din and the whole world, and Prakash because he wanted to talk to a familiar face.

‘There is a small garden downstairs. Nobody will be there at this time. Don’t make it long,’ said Lalwani.

‘I need to make a very urgent call. May I use your phone, Mr. Lalwani?’ Bina asked.

With trembling fingers, she dialled the numbers.

‘Hello Din? Din!’ She struggled to get the words out of her parched throat.

‘What’s come over you, Bina? You sound strange,’ replied Dindshaw Bhot.

‘I have something big for the cover. I mean big. Send a photographer as soon as possible,’ she said.

‘What the hell do you mean! We go to print tomorrow!’ The editor most nearly howled.

‘I know. Don’t be mad. I can finish writing the piece by tonight. Just give me two hours and I will call you back. You are not going to believe this. Take my word, Limelight’s going to fly off the stands. Send a photographer. Here is the address…’

END